Officials: Changes Help Birthday Bash Run More Efficiently

Officials: Changes Help Birthday Bash Run More Efficiently

ALLEGAN COUNTY, Mich. (June 8, 2014) — Another B-93 Birthday Bash is in the books, but the twenty-second year didn’t come without some changes.

Last year traffic backups were a major issue, but this year they required a parking pass that had to be bought in advance. Both law enforcement and organizers say it helped make things run smoother as they saw less problems on the highway.

A lot of planning goes into making the event safer, and the Allegan County Sheriff’s Office also said this year they would be cracking down on drinking in the parking lot.

Captain Mike Larsen said in the past they didn’t have the resources available to include the parking lot but more help from other municipalities has allowed for increased enforcement there.

Officials say bringing alcohol onto the property violate the venue’s liquor license and say it also causes more problems.

“We had extensive efforts in the parking lot to subdue that and that’s what’s helped keep the numbers from sky rocketing in years previous. We tried to use just as much enforcement to get point across and comply with that but it’s going to be very important from now on if this event continues to remain here that people realize no containers of alcohol are to brought into the venue,” Larsen said.

He says county wide on Saturday they had 55-60 arrests and most of them were related to the event and outlying traffic.

On a normal Saturday he says they usually see 15 to 20. But overall considering the tens of thousands of people coming and going he says there was nothing major.

“This is a great crowd; these are good people that love to have fun. 50 or 60 sounds like a lot in one weekend event but when you consider the number of people in and out of here it’s normal.”

He said there were roughly 70 arrests for the entire weekend.

Like they do following every year, law enforcement and organizers will meet to debrief on how things went and begin planning for the next year.

Which for the first time, B-93 announced the date of the next bash on Sunday; it will be June 13, 2015.

“We already have one act confirmed so far for next year, that’s how much in Nashville there’s a positive vibe of birthday bash,” said operations manager, Doug Montgomery.